THE GHAZI ATTACK - Ignoring the filmy touches, it largely remains a rare and delightful focused war movie featuring a talented cast ensemble that deserves to be given a chance for sure. (Review by Bobby Sing)

Hindi Cinema has rarely dared to give us a realistic war movie that can be largely praised for its impressive onscreen portrayal. Moreover an underwater war movie has actually never been there before THE GHAZI ATTACK, giving the film its deserving credit of being the first project in this genre coming from the Hindi Cinema.

Fictionally decoding the mystery behind the destruction of Pakistani submarine PNS Ghazi in the Bay of Bengal during (before) the 1971 Indo-Pak war (as mentioned in its detailed disclaimer), the film made in Telugu and Hindi, begins with an voiceover of Amitabh Bachchan (giving an early insight of the story) and then never loses the grip in the next two exciting hours crafted skillfully.

The biggest merit of the film remains its talented cast ensemble featuring the terrific impactful Kay Kay, the ever-sincere Atul Kulkarni and a notably restrained Rana Daggubati in charge of the Indian submarine, along with Late Om Puri and Naseer (in short cameos) as their commanding Navy officers. Rahul Singh as a bit hamming Pakistani captain successfully plays to the gallery and Tapsee Pannu makes a decent emotional connect with the viewers in her few scenes. Milind Gunaji makes a surprising brief appearance after a long gap and supporting cast does it well despite not getting any detailed attention in the narration.

(Mild Spoilers Ahead)
Competently directed by the debutant Sankalp Reddy and well-scripted by his writers (including the dialogues), the film scores the maximum before the intermission and has a few minuses coming in the second half, which interestingly get shielded by a strong spirit of nationalism and the viewers mostly involved in the thrilling edge of the seat entertainment in its final hour.

For instance, in a particular scene it’s really strange to see the captain whispering to the operating officers about the danger ahead as if the opponents might hear him, the use of complete National Anthem towards the end looks like highly forced or unnecessary and then the collective singing of Indian soldiers reaching out to the Pakistanis in their better equipped submarine defies all logics of underwater acoustics quite weirdly. Also a few potential scenes strongly demanded a much stronger execution like the one where Rana saves two civilian’s lives in the sea and then returns back to the submarine in the given time.

Having said that, the team still bravely manages to deliver a highly engrossing and worth praising film considering its limited budget, less effective special effects and the fact that it all happens within the restricted areas of a submarine without any added sub-plot or the typical songs. Many brilliantly directed sequences lift up the narration repeatedly such as the heated interactions between the two captains, the senior captain’s emotional final farewell and the decisive ‘up and down’ games being played with the much strong rival in the climax. And for this the film’s writers, background score composer, cinematographer and the editor deserves equal praises too apart from the director, who certainly is capable of making a near perfect film next, if given a better opportunity.

In all, ignoring the forced filmy touches, THE GHAZI ATTACK largely remains a delightfully focused treat led by a talented cast, which is a rarity in the present questionable scenario of Hindi Cinema. So it surely deserves to be given a fair chance as your personal support to such courageous well-made films having no big stars.

Ending on a positive note, it was good to see the film being presented by Karan Johar, since the name has never been associated with such experimental, off beat cinema in the last many years……. raising many new hopes.

Rating : 3.5 / 5